3 Units
https://acc.autodesk.com/docs/files/projects/7a6d9404-5c50-4d49-acbd-cf67d7302936?folderUrn=urn%3Aadsk.wipprod%3Afs.folder%3Aco.SWn7GNPETbWSoWnykGS6qw&viewModel=detail&moduleId=folders
For this module, I built upon the building form I created for Module 5 (See Figure 1).
Figure 1. Original Building Form.
Before starting this analysis, I took some time to determine how I best wanted to evaluate the structure I had built. The first one that came to mind was to look at the cost of the building per square foot. I know that cost is an important metric at every step of a project, and, as a building owner, it is important to know cost per square foot for when renting or selling floors, or section of floors, in a building. After this first metric was identified, I changed directions for the second metric and decided to evaluate environmental impact. This one was very different from the cost metric and took some time to determine how I wanted to do it. I identified three materials that are commonly used in construction: concrete, wood, and steel. Then I determined three life cycle impacts of the materials: environmental impact of obtaining them, environmental impact during construction, and environmental impact over the life of the material (which would account for how long the material can survive without maintenance). I gave the materials rankings in each of these categories from 1 to 3, with 1 being the best and 3 being the worst, based on my knowledge of the three materials. For simplicity, I only evaluated these materials being used on the exterior of the building, as the interior of buildings vary with finishes, piping, furniture, etc.
Once I chose my metrics and how I wanted to implement them into the analysis of this structure, I extended my Dynamo file from last module to include these metrics (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Dynamo Layout for Analysis.
This script linked directly to an Excel spreadsheet to create a table with my desired metrics. This table can be seen in Figure 3. It is important to note that the evaluator metrics are color scaled in this table to make it easier to evaluate. The output metric for the material’s environmental impact was ranking each of the three per iteration, and then reranking them through all of the iterations at the end. With this, they are ranked from 1 to 75, with 1 being the best material choice based on my evaluation and 75 being the worst.
Figure 3. Output from Iterations.
These were then averaged together to see which combinations provided better or worse environmental impact, on aggregate, in case a mixture of materials was desirable to be used. This average environmental impact and the cost per SF were used to identify the top three alternatives, as well as the alternative that I deem to be the best. These two things were used to identify the top alternatives, as their formulation already takes into account the other metrics used in this analysis and provide a more understandable value for the structure. The average environmental impact and cost per SF can be seen in Figure 4, with the top three choices identified with bold numbers, and the top choice signified with the increased font size.
Figure 4. Optimization Scheme and Recommended Designs.
Figure 4 shows how my recommended option has a top height of 550ft and a top rotation of 90 degrees, as it is the best proportion of cost per SF and average environmental impact.
My new node logic for the evaluation metrics can be seen in the Appendix figures below.
Evaluate Environmental Impact:
Updated Evaluating Pair of Inputs for New Cost Metric:
